Exotic Higgs Decay $h\to \varphi \varphi \to 4b$ at the LHeC

Abstract

We study the exotic decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson ($h$) into a pair of light spin-0 particles ($\varphi$) which subsequently decays and results in a $4b$ final state. This decay mode is well motivated in the Next to Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) and extended Higgs sector models. Instead of searching at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) which are beset by large Standard Model (SM) backgrounds, we investigate this decay channel at the much cleaner Large Hadron Electron Collider (LHeC). With some simple selection cuts this channel becomes nearly free of background at this $ep$ machine, in stark contrast with the situation at the (HL-)LHC. With a parton level analysis we show that for the $\varphi$ mass range $[20,60]GeV$, with $100f{b}^{-1}$ luminosity the LHeC is generally capable of constraining $C_{4b}^2\equiv {\kappa }_V^2\times \text{Br}(h\to \varphi \varphi )\times {\text{Br}}^2(\varphi \to b\bar{b})$ (${\kappa }_V$ denotes the $hVV(V=W,Z)$ coupling strength relative to the SM value) to a few percent level ($95\%$ CLs). With $1a{b}^{-1}$ luminosity $C_{4b}^2$ at a few per mille level can be probed. These sensitivities are much better than the HL-LHC performance and demonstrate the important role expected to be played by the LHeC in probing exotic Higgs decay processes, in addition to the already proposed invisible Higgs decay channel.

10 pages, 5 figures. Version accepted by EPJC. Tables and figures updated after correcting a mistake in signal event generation. Results essentially unchanged

References in corpus (14)

• Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC
• The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations
• Measurements of the Higgs boson production and decay rates and constraints on its couplings from a combined ATLAS and CMS analysis of the LHC $pp$ collision data at $\sqrt{s}=$ 7 and 8 TeV
• MadAnalysis 5, a user-friendly framework for collider phenomenology
• Status of the Higgs Singlet Extension of the Standard Model after LHC Run 1
• Role of h --> eta eta in Intermediate-Mass Higgs Boson Searches at the Large Hadron Collider
• Higgs Signal for h to aa at Hadron Colliders
• Anatomy of Exotic Higgs Decays in 2HDM
• Search for the Higgs boson produced in association with a $W$ boson and decaying to four $b$-quarks via two spin-zero particles in $pp$ collisions at 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Uncovering light scalars with exotic Higgs decays to bbmumu
• Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to Higgs production at a future lepton-proton collider
• Associated Production of Non-Standard Higgs Bosons at the LHC
• Novel Higgs decay signals in R-parity violating models

Cited by in corpus (8)

• The Large Hadron-Electron Collider at the HL-LHC
• Search for single production of vector-like top partners at the Large Hadron Electron Collider
• Hadronic decays of Higgs boson at NNLO matched with parton shower
• Higgs boson decay into four bottom quarks in the SM and beyond
• Exotic Higgs decays into displaced jets at the LHeC
• Differential distributions for Single Top Quark Production at the LHeC
• Constraining the light Higgs bosons in the GNMSSM with recent Higgs data
• Illuminating all-hadronic final states with a photon: Exotic decays of the Higgs boson to four bottom quarks in vector boson fusion plus gamma at hadron colliders